Signalshttp://www.signals.co.ukumbracoenMARCH 2015http://www.signals.co.uk/blog/march-2015Mon, 02 Mar 2015 09:01:47 GMThttp://www.signals.co.uk/blog/march-2015Wow, is it finally nearly here? Spring! Glimpses of colour in gardens and flashy smartwatches under shorter jacket sleeves? Check out some of the most exciting incarnations courtesy of Sophie Curtis, who is at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona for The Telegraph. Visit their website to see the live stream from the conference, from now until the 5th March.

Last month Google announced that the team responsible for this product would be dismantled, or at least reshuffled, and that leadership responsibility would be handed across to Tony Fadell. Fadell led the team that created the first 18 generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the iPhone, and most recently is Founder & CEO of Nest (the smart thermostat bought by Google last year), so this looks more like a drive for a change in direction than the retraction it was largely felt to be by software developers, who can no longer purchase the product under the Explorer Programme.

Image: Google Glass press

Forbes has posted an article by Gene Marks proposing that from the ashes of a confused product launch has come an understanding of where Google Glass needs to be right now, and that is not with hipsters but with the enterprise market. The medical industry, engineering sector, broadcasting, and security to name a few are all areas with strong incentive to exploit the opportunities afforded by this technology and to drive innovation in turn.

Image: Barts Health NHS Trust

Whatever you think about proposed applications such as this one by Wearable Intelligence, or those proposed by CrowdOptic, Augmedix and APX Labs, they all make a convincing case for the significant and successful future of Google Glass.

This is our final 2015 prediction, so it naturally falls with Bob to share his thoughts on what 2015 will bring:

At the end of 2015 Signals will be celebrating a quarter century in business.

There has been an evolution of output through those years, starting with beautiful and informative graphical 35mm slides (maybe we would call them ‘infographics' now), through some of the first B2B websites, and on to what we are doing now - providing solutions to support every stage of the channel and direct sales process.

We are proud to say that some of the world's best known companies entrust us to solve their complex sales and marketing challenges with elegance and clarity.

Underpinning this is our dedicated and highly skilled team of individuals.

We are ready, therefore, for an exciting 2015 which I predict will be a year of growth and innovation: growth in our customer base and our team; innovation in our technologies and our solutions.

Our penultimate prediction comes from Jo, who would like to put in a request for a nice high security purse, if any manufacturers are reading!

The recent high profile attack by hackers on Sony Pictures serves to highlight the question of security for us all, as we increasingly live our lives online. Norton and Betabrand have teamed up to create clothing that prevents hackers from remotely accessing the personal information stored on our credit and debit cards. These items use a silver based material to block Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) signals. Disklabs have used similar technology to create a wallet which has the same effect.

My prediction is that 2015 will see more innovation, in this area and elsewhere, as hackers become more adept and the price for any lapse in security becomes higher.

Augmented Reality (AR) technology will become more mainstream. With the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets, and faster mobile processing power, we already have the hardware in our hands. There are many areas where AR technology can bring us convenience or a bit of fun; for example, AR that can quickly display information in the environment around us and AR that helps deliver rich media on top of physical objects. Yes, applications (such as Theodolite) already exist, but AR remains a relatively untapped market and there ís definitely potential for growth as people find new and creative ways to both present and consume information in the real world.

I was tempted to predict that by the end of 2015 we'd be turning on our lights and setting our thermostats from the comfort of our driverless cars as we commute home but it looks like previous predictions from the studio have that covered, so i'm going to go with a bit of a hangover from the festive TV season.

I predict with great hope that 2015 will mark the end of a device beloved of reality shows across the board: the pregnant pause. We might expect to be irritated by cheap thrills in showbiz talent shows such as X-Factor, but those long seconds of dramatised silence are shoe-horned into TV contests across the board, surely to universal frustration?

I think 2015 is the year for producers all over the industry to ask themselves why? And then...

Anastasia's prediction relates to THIS article in the BBC's technology section.

I predict that driverless car trials, due to begin in the UK in January, will have as much success as they have in the US where as of April 2014 the Google self-driving cars have logged nearly 700,000 miles without any major failures.

While I doubt the general public will be using driverless cars by this time next year, 2015 will be the first year in which driverless cars will be allowed on public roads in the UK. In the longterm, they will hopefully result in a calmer, safer commute!

]]>Happy New Year!http://www.signals.co.uk/blog/happy-new-year!Wed, 31 Dec 2014 19:31:54 GMThttp://www.signals.co.uk/blog/happy-new-year!Wishing all our clients, colleagues and collaborators a most happy and prosperous 2015!